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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24342175">there is a place that i'm home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisPronounce_and_MisAccent/pseuds/MisPronounce_and_MisAccent'>MisPronounce_and_MisAccent</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Friday - Team StarKid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Austistic Hannah, Bisexual Characters, Califormia Family, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, F/M, Falling In Love, Found Family Elements, Gen, Implied Neglectful Parent, Lex Foster Character Study, Lex just adores hannah, Platonic Love, Pre-Canon, Twelfth Night as a lens with which to examine bisexuality, ethan does too, sibling relationships, straight people dont layer clothes like that, we know lex and ethan are both bi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:36:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,383</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24342175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisPronounce_and_MisAccent/pseuds/MisPronounce_and_MisAccent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, it's always the three of them. Lex and Ethan, and Hannah, poised perfectly between them. The three of them, and that's all they need.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hannah Foster &amp; Lex Foster, Lex Foster &amp; Ethan Green, Lex Foster/Ethan Green</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>there is a place that i'm home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She meets Ethan when she’s five, curly-haired and sibling-free, with bright eyes that see the trailer park as a kingdom.</p><p>He is kicking stones around her royal courtyard, hair shorn close to his scalp, hands in the pockets of an old, worn down jacket. Through the fog of the trailer window, she sees the toe of his shoe send flying one of the stones on her too-short, hand-drawn hopscotch board. Her jaw drops, and she runs from the window to the door, shoves it open with her play-bruised shoulder. She darts across the pavement, feet smudging the already blurry chalk drawings of frogs, until she reaches the boy and pushes him, hard, in the chest.</p><p>He stumbles backwards, then his too-bushy eyebrows furrow and he pushes back. Her lip curls and she bares her teeth, growls like the raccoon she’s seen at the edge of the woods. His eyes widen and he turns. He runs. And she gives chase.</p><p>She follows him, a wild animal after prey, and this is a better game than any she has played on her own, and soon, she is laughing. Laughing harder when he turns too quick, so that her hand grazes his jacket, before he meets her eye and darts away. His shoes, she realizes, are as worn as her own. His laugh, just as loud.</p><p>At the open patch of grass just before the edge of the forest, she catches up, bit-down fingernails digging into his shoulders as she turns and tackles him. She presses her knobbly knees into his chest, face flushed with victory and mouth full with laughter.</p><p>His joins in a moment after, and they are lost in a fit of giggles until there’s no more breath for her to turn to laughter. He pokes her in the arm, just below where the bruise still stings.</p><p>“Wanna be best friends?”</p><p>She tilts her head, considers. It seems too valuable a position to give out so freely. But, he can run good, and chasing him is more fun than playing alone. Maybe he even knows how to play hopscotch.</p><p>She doesn’t even know what you’re supposed to <em>do</em> with the stones.</p><p>She nods. “I guess. What’s your name?”</p><p>He grins. He’s missing the same tooth that has just started wiggling for her. “I’m Ethan.”</p><p>“I’m Alexandra.” </p><p>“’Lexandra,” he tries, missing the first <em>a</em> sound entirely. “Bet I can run to the stop sign first.”</p><p>She smiles, and shoves him against the ground, pulling herself up to run before he can protest. She glances back as he scrambles, hand over worn sneaker, to stand. She doesn’t wait to see how long it takes him, before she sprints off.</p><p>She plans on winning.</p>
<hr/><p>“Mom’s having a baby,” she says, just before throwing a stone at a row of cans. Ethan had set them up a while ago, on the fence barring away the woods. They’d sat back by where the grass gave way to gravel, taking turns trying to knock them down.</p><p>Neither had managed it yet.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“A <em>baby</em>.” She takes one of the stones from Ethan’s hand, and he leans over her to get it back. “A girl, like me. Dunno what we’re calling her.”</p><p>Ethan wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. He hasn’t cut his hair in a while; curls fall to cover his eyes. “Babies aren’t that fun.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“My brothers said I was annoying when I was a baby.”</p><p>She grins. “Probably.”</p><p>He shoves her. She shoves him back. He pulls his knees against his chest. She throws a rock at a can. He laughs when it misses.</p><p>“Dad gave me a doll with a smaller, doll sister,” she says. Ethan looks over at her, chin hooked over his knee. “Like me and the baby. It was so small. How do you play with anybody that small?”</p><p>“You can’t. Not till she’s like,” He raises his hand so it’s just above his shoulder, while he’s sitting. “That big.” She tilts her head, then shrugs. He lobs a rock. It arcs over the cans, into the woods. “Hey, Lexa?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“When she’s that big, you’ll still play with me, yeah? The three of us can play together.”</p><p>She looks at him. He’s not smiling, she can’t see the gap where he lost a tooth last week, only the pokemon band-aid on his cheek from when he fell, running to tell her about it. “Yeah. ‘Course we will.”</p><p>He nods. He smiles. “Good.”</p><p>She turns away, and picks up the orange-ish rock she’s been saving, knowing it will have the best luck. She weighs it in her hand. She takes aim, and throws.</p><p>It hits the fence post, with just enough force that the rightmost can rattles, wobbles to the side—</p><p>It doesn’t fall.</p><p>Ethan hums. “Getting closer.”</p>
<hr/><p>She wakes up before the sun has risen. There’s the smell of eggs from the kitchen— someone’s cooking. Her parents don’t cook. They get pizza or takeout or chicken nuggets from the fridge. And that’s okay. </p><p>She doesn’t really like eggs.</p><p>She stands up, blinking into the dark, and pushes herself down off the bed. She avoids the places where she knows the boards creak, and peers around the open doorway from her room into the kitchen. The lights are on, there’s the smell of eggs, and a woman, with a belly decidedly flatter than mom’s. Her hair is tied back, like Lexa wears hers, but it’s a dark black.</p><p>She turns, and looks at her, and— “Oh, good morning, Alexandra.”</p><p>It’s Ethan’s mama.</p><p>“Is Ethan here?” she asks, peering around the kitchen for a sign of him, wondering where he would hide. He doesn’t come in much, cause outside’s more fun, and mom won’t let him sleep over.</p><p>“No, no, your parents just asked me to watch you for the morning.” She kneels down to look at Lexa, that way grownups do when they don’t quite trust you to rise to their level. Lexa frowns. “Your mama just had her baby, Alexandra. You have a little sister!”</p><p>“Oh,” she says. </p><p>She knows, by now, what it looks like when grown ups are disappointed in her. The grin drops, the eyebrows furrow, just slightly, lips press into a thin, dark line. Ethan’s mama only holds the expression for a second, before shaking her head.</p><p>“Your dad is coming back to take you to the hospital, to see her. I’m not sure when he’ll get here, so I’m just making you some breakfast. Do you like eggs?”</p><p>She doesn’t. She shrugs.</p><p>“I put some juice on the table, if you want to drink that while you wait.”</p><p>It’s orange juice, which she likes. They usually just have it on Christmas morning, with coffee cake and eggs she doesn’t eat. She drinks it quickly.</p><p>The baby isn’t supposed to be born yet. Not for another few days. Lexa knows, cause mom had put it on the calendar, said it was a planned date ‘cause it was a ‘c-section’. Lexa’s had been too. She knows it means she and her sister had to be cut out of mom’s belly. </p><p>If there’s another way a baby would come out, she can’t think of it.</p><p>Her dad comes when she’s halfway through stuffing the eggs in a napkin in her lap. If he notices what she’s doing, he doesn’t say anything. He still doesn’t say anything, when she throws that napkin in the garbage. </p><p>In the taxi, he asks her about school, even though they’ve been on break for four days by then. He doesn’t say much after that. He doesn’t say much usually.</p><p>Lexa has only been to the hospital once before— aside from when she was born, she guesses, but she doesn’t remember that— when Ethan broke his thumb jumping off a log in the woods. She hadn’t really liked it then, hadn’t liked how quiet Ethan was or how her parents rushed her past the sick people, so she wouldn’t stare. How it was all white and grey with no color except the crayons mom had given her to play with in the waiting room.</p><p>She doesn’t like it much better now, tapping her feet on the shiny floor as she waits for someone to tell her she can go see mom. It’s really boring. Her dad didn’t even bring crayons, and she wishes Ethan was there.</p><p>“Lexa?” Her dad calls, after she’s counted nearly all of the tiles on the floor. “You can come in now.”</p><p>She pushes herself off the chair and follows him into the hospital room. It’s brighter than she thought it would be, a harsh white bulb on the ceiling covering mom in alternating light and dark. And, in mom’s arms, the baby.</p><p>“Alexandra,” mom says, smiling down at the person in her arms the way Lexa hasn’t seen her smile in… In a while. “This is your baby sister. We’re calling her ‘Hannah’.”</p><p>Lexa peers over mom’s shoulder, to see her. Her body is tiny, her head too, face all shriveled-up and wrinkly, eyes still closed. She’s so, so small, for something that’s such a big deal.</p><p>“Do you want to hold her, Alexandra?” Mom asks. “The nurse said it was alright, as long as dad stands next to you.”</p><p><em>Does</em> she? She knows she’s strong; she’s sure she could hold her. But she doesn’t know anything about this tiny person with her wrinkled up face, who is a part of their family now, it seems.</p><p>But mom is looking at her, so expectant, so she nods, so she says, “Okay.”</p><p>The nurse tells Lexa where to sit down, then how to position her arms, the right way to cup the baby’s head. It all seems very thought-out and important, so Lexa nods throughout the whole thing. With a final ‘go ahead’ from mom, the nurse takes the baby from her arms and settles her, gently, in Lexa’s.</p><p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p><p>She inhales fast, a gasp more than a breath. Air rushing into her lungs faster than she can hold it, and she suddenly remembers the time she’d fallen off a fence, flat onto her back. Uncontrolled breath. The nurse asks if she’s alright, if she wants to give the baby back. She <em>doesn’t</em>. She shakes her head and pulls Hannah even closer.</p><p>Hannah looked bald in the harsh light, but with her head against Lexa’s arm, she can feel the soft wisps of hair against her skin. She’s just as small up close. They’ve put her in clothes, a pale-pink onesie that seems just a bit too big on her, sleeves pooling around her tiny hands. One of them, curled in a baby fist, punches the arm Lexa isn’t cupping her head with. Then, the tiny hand uncurls, feels around for Lexa’s pointer finger, and closes around it. </p><p>
  <em>Her baby sister is holding her hand.</em>
</p><p>Lexa, for the first time that day, for the first time, it seems, in a while, smiles.</p><p>“Hello Hannah,” she says, whispering so that nobody but she and the baby can hear. It is just the two of them, now, in this white-gray room, just the two of them, in this whole world. If she looks closely, it seems like Hannah’s smiling too. “I’m Lexa, your sister. We’re gonna be best friends.”</p>
<hr/><p>“So what’s she do?” Ethan asks, lying on his back, head tilted so he can look at Hannah. Lexa is lying across from him on her stomach, such that Hannah is poised between the two of them.</p><p>Lexa laughs at him, reaching her hand out to play with the barely-there curls on Hannah’s head. “She’s, like, six months. She doesn’t have to do anything yet. She just… sits around.”</p><p>Ethan pokes a finger at the flesh around Hannah’s arm. It’s not forceful enough to even indent when he presses. “Doesn’t talk yet?”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>He rolls over onto his front. “‘Just don’t think I get the big deal.”</p><p>“She’s so <em>small</em>,” Lexa insists, laughing when Hannah reaches out to pull Ethan’s hair and he jolts back, affronted. “It’s— how can she even do anything, she’s tiny! But she can still eat and laugh and tell that your hair <em>sucks</em>.”</p><p>“<em>You</em> suck.” He fluffs up his hair with one hand, pouting. “She was just pulling at it cause she thought it was so cool. Wanted to touch it.”</p><p>Lexa laughs, eyes still trained on Hannah’s reaching hands, which have found their way to the fur on the inside of Ethan’s hood. “<em>Sure</em>.” When Hannah touches Ethan’s face with a hand she’d stuck in her mouth not three seconds prior, he whines out a ‘<em>gross</em>’ and Lexa shakes her head. She picks Hannah up, the way the nurse showed her months ago, and waits until the baby stops squirming and settles against Lexa’s chest. “I get to help out with her a bunch. Mom lets me feed her, sometimes, and I get to tell her bedtime stories and rock her as she goes to sleep.”</p><p>“Sounds like a lot of work.”</p><p>Lexa shakes her head. “No, it’s fun! There was never anything to <em>do</em> at home, and now I’ve got her. Besides, she’s so, <em>so</em> smart. If I ask her to grab a specific toy, she’s usually able to pick it out of a pile! Plus—” She wonders if this is weird to say, if he would think she’s making stuff up. But, no. This is Ethan. “Plus, you know, she doesn’t talk yet. But sometimes I see her and shes babbling like normal, and then she’ll tilt her head and go quiet for a bit, and then she’ll open her eyes and smile like— like someone was talking to her.”</p><p>Ethan furrows his eyebrows. He’s sitting up now, arms folded across his knees. “Are you sure that’s not just a thing babies do?”</p><p>Lexa shakes her head. “Nope. I think you’re just jealous that she’s way smarter than we were when we were this small.”</p><p>“Oh!” Ethan exclaims, leaning suddenly forward with a grin. “That reminds me, I found out something last week.”</p><p>“Yeah?” She’s listening, but Hannah has gotten both hands curled into Lexa’s hair, and she needs to work on untangling them. “What about?”</p><p>“You know how I don’t read too good?”</p><p>Ethan and her get some of the worst grades in the class, when it came to reading and spelling. She does a bit better, but not by much. But it’s okay, because it’s a problem they share. “Yeah?”</p><p>“Turns out I got something called ‘dyslexia’.” He smiles around the word, the syllables all jumbled together so that Lexa can barely make it out. “I went to the doctor last week and she told me I’ve got it.”</p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p>“It’s like, how my letters get mixed up when I read, how I can’t tell them apart sometimes? And how I mix up the pluses and minuses in math, and how I write the letters of the words out of order sometimes. Guess it means my brain gets it all confused and mixed up the way other kids’ brains don’t.” </p><p>“Huh.” She has untangled the hands from her hair, and Hannah’s gone to picking at her sweater, but she suddenly wishes she had something to do with her hands again. “So you’re not really bad at reading, you just have—” She can’t remember how he said it. “Your brain just messes stuff up for you?”</p><p>Ethan shrugs. “I guess? Doctor said I gotta practice a bunch, that if I get a tutor and learn ‘specific strategies’ to make it easier, I’ll be able to read and write pretty alright. Things’ll still be confused, but I’ll work through it.” He reaches out through the space between them and pokes her arm. “Maybe you got it too? Cause reading’s tough for both of us.”</p><p>She fixes the collar of Hannah’s onesie, for something to look at that isn’t him. She doesn’t mix up letters that much when reading— only when writing, sometimes. It’s just that, it takes her a really long time to get through a sentence, and some words take her long enough to puzzle through that she’s forgotten the beginning of the phrase before she finishes it. And then she just gets frustrated. Then she doesn’t want to read.</p><p>Her parents used to read to her. She liked stories a lot better then.</p><p>“Maybe. I’ll ask mom.”</p><p>Ethan laughs, suddenly and without explanation. She frowns down at him. “No, I was just thinking, it would be, you’d have dys-lexa-ia.” She tries to keep herself from laughing, because what a <em>dumb</em> joke, but can’t really manage it. Especially when Hannah, seeing the two of them, starts laughing too.</p><p>She leans over and flicks his forehead. “You aren’t funny, Ethan.”</p><p>He catches her hand in his, grinning at her so wide his dimples show. “Yeah, I am.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Mom?”</p><p>Mom doesn’t look up from her papers long enough to answer, “Yes, Lexa?” </p><p>Lexa rings her hands in front of her. She’s always liked the feeling of pulling at her fingers, especially when she’s nervous. “Ethan says the doctor says he has dyslexia.” She’d practiced saying the word in the mirror a few times, to make sure mom would know what she was talking about.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“I thought— him and me do about the same with reading— do you think I have it too? We could ask the doctor.”</p><p>Mom sighs and runs a hand over her eyes. “You don’t have dyslexia, Alexandra. Like you’ve said, it just takes you a while to get through words. So, you just need more practice.”</p><p><em>Of course</em>. Of course. Lexa had been right, then. She isn’t— ‘course she isn’t. She’s just bad at it, no reason.</p><p>Her throat is tight.</p><p>After a minute of silence, mom looks up from the papers, at Lexa. “Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t mean— how about this, we ask the doctor at your checkup, and until then, I’ll get a new book for you to try. I just don’t— I don’t have time to take you to the doctor’s right now, alright?”</p><p>Lexa can’t say anything.</p><p>She just nods.</p>
<hr/><p>At the checkup, mom doesn’t bring it up. Lexa isn’t sure if she should.</p><p>So she doesn’t.</p>
<hr/><p>Before school, Lexa is eating a toaster waffle with peanut butter while mashing up half a banana in a bowl. She can hear mom in the room over, shuffling around as she hurries into work clothes. It soon gets drowned out, by Hannah’s babbling. </p><p>Hannah babbles a lot, a lot of nothing that Lexa still likes listening to. Today, it begins to take musical shape, fill out a tune. Within a minute, she’s singing the word-less melody of one of her cartoons.</p><p>“Hannah, I didn’t know you were a singer,” Lexa says, leaning towards her sister. Hannah smiles, big and nearly toothless, and hits the tray before her with one hand, then the other. Lexa fakes a gasp. “And a drummer too! We’re gonna be famous; you’re the musician, and I’m the actress,” she strikes a pose, back of one hand against her head, and the other out to the side. The position does not sit well with her waffle, the melted peanut butter dripping down from the angle it is held by her head. But she’s quick, and with nothing more than a small shriek, she catches the drop on the side of the banana bowl. She licks it off the ceramic. Hannah laughs, and babbles more.</p><p>“Lexa,” mom calls, from inside her bedroom. “Can you get the baby to quiet down? I need to look for some files and that’s not helping.”</p><p>Lexa sighs, not loud enough for mom to hear, and grabs a baby spoon to dip in the mashed banana. “I’m sorry, little Miss Foster, we’re moving your concert to later. Wrong crowd.” Hannah immediately stops singing in favor of food, and is quick to lean forward to meet the spoon. She gurgles, happy, and hits her hands on the tray again. Lexa offers her another bite, which she accepts, before grabbing at the baby blue bowl in Lexa’s hands. It’s her favorite, painted with smiling cartoon spiders in a purple web. Lexa had bought it at a yard sale for twenty-five cents, wanting it for Halloween, but now it was a Hannah-only item.</p><p>“You want the whole bowl?” She asks. In place of an answer, Hannah nearly reaches out of her seat, grabbing at it. “Guess so.” She puts the bowl in front of her, and Hannah grabs at the mush with two hands, smearing it over her face as she eats. Lexa laughs and watches, making sure she doesn’t choke, or something— she doesn’t really know how that happens with babies, but it can’t hurt. By the time she’s finished her waffle, Hannah has distributed the entire contents of the bowl in her mouth and across her face.</p><p>“You sure like banana, Hannah,” Lexa says. Then, laughs. “Hannah Banana! Mom!” She runs the short distance to meet her mom, walking out of the bedroom. “Mom, I was feeding Hannah, and I realized her name—” </p><p>“Christ, Alexandra, she's covered in food!” Mom interrupts, unclasping the tray and picking Hannah up. “I told you to feed her, not let her feed herself. Dammit, <em>dammit</em>,  I’m already going to be late.” Lexa shrinks back. Mom’s always like this, in the morning, but when dad used to be the one to walk her to the bus stop, she didn’t have to see it as much.</p><p>He doesn’t walk her to the bus stop anymore.</p><p>“Just— you know your way, right? I’m not going to have time to walk you, today. Can you find Ethan?”</p><p>Ethan’s always at the stop long before she is . Even if she leaves now, she won’t catch up.</p><p>She nods anyway.</p><p>“Okay, good. I have a late shift, so can you pick your sister up from the Greens’?” She nods again. “Good, okay. I love you, I’ll see you later.”</p><p>“Love you, see you later,” she echoes. She gets halfway to the door, and then, in a moment of boldness, turns back. “See you later, Banana.”</p><p>Her mom looks up from washing Hannah’s face. “What was that?”</p><p>She nudges the door open with her shoulder, not making eye contact.</p><p>“Nothing.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Can I tell you a secret?” </p><p>“’Course.” Lexa kicks a rock and watches it tumble over the cracked pavement. Ethan does the same, and his knocks into hers.</p><p>“I got a way of doing it now, a signal to tell someone you have a secret, or that you’re being really honest, or want them to answer you honestly. My sister told me.”</p><p>“Is that the secret?”</p><p>He elbows her and laughs. “<em>No</em>, duh.”</p><p>“Duh,” she echoes. Then, lining up a pebble with the light-up end of her shoe, “What’s this secret signal?”</p><p>“So, like,” he pauses, and it takes her a moment to realize he’s stopped walking while she continued, following the pebble. She sends a forlorn look at the little stone, and returns to Ethan. She looks at him, expectant. “So, I take your hand.” He holds his out, palm up, and she covers it with hers. He laces their fingers together. “Then I tap my thumb on yours! Then I say a secret or ask a really important question. That’s it.”</p><p>“Huh.” Lexa doesn’t think she’ll use this often. She doesn't really keep secrets, from Ethan at least. But still, “That’s cool.” </p><p>He beams. “Isn’t it?”</p><p>“So,” she prompts and then taps his thumb. “What’s the secret?”</p><p>His grin drops. “Oh, uh—”</p><p>“You didn’t actually have a secret, did you?”</p><p>“I wanted to show you the signal!”</p><p>Lexa laughs, rolls her eyes, and taps twice on his hand. “You’re a dork.”</p><p>He taps her hand in turn. “Well, then you’re best friends with a dork.” With nothing more than a nasal laugh, he lets go of her hand and runs forward, kicking the pebble she’d been eyeing into the grass.</p><p>She laughs, and he laughs, and she gives chase.</p>
<hr/><p>“It’s good!” Ethan says, chin hooked over his knee on the floor of the rec center. Hannah sits next to him, sorting legos into piles based on color. They’re scattered around her, several in her lap, and one, blue and dented, between her teeth.</p><p>“Good,” she echoes, around the lego in her mouth.</p><p>“Hey Banana, you shouldn’t chew on that,” Lexa cajoles. Hannah looks up at her for a second. Then, with a stubborn sigh, takes it out of her mouth and puts it with the other blue legos. “Thank you, we’ll get snacks later,” she promises.</p><p>“Okay, really, Ethan.” She walks over to him, drapes the borrowed feather boa over his shoulders. It’s the rec center’s, so it's more faded off-white than pink, but it still adds a flair. “What should I fix?”</p><p>He shrugs. She glares. “I really don’t know! It sounded good.”</p><p>“Good,” Hannah echoes again, holding a magenta lego over the pink pile, then the red, then the pink again. She eventually settles it in its own place.</p><p>Lexa falls dramatically back into the chair she’d put up for the scene. “‘<em>Make me a willow cabin at your gate, / And call upon my soul within the house…</em>’” She repeats. “Maybe this monologue is too overdone? It’s not like they’d ever cast me as Viola. Maybe I should try a Mariah piece?”</p><p>“You’d be a great Viola,” Ethan assures. “My brother says they hardly ever give good parts to the seventh graders, though. So if you don’t get it that’s why.”</p><p>“It’s my <em>debut</em>,” she says, dragging out the final sound. She’d learned the word from Priya, an eighth grader in her drama class. “Maybe I need an Olivia to practice with. Like, she’s presenting this whole speech to her, right?”</p><p>Ethan shrugs again. “I’ve never read Shakespeare.”</p><p>Lexa stands up and holds out her arms to him. He sighs and grabs onto her hands, and she pulls him up. “Sit,” she commands, and he plops down in the chair. “The print-out is next to you, just say your line after my part.”</p><p>“Any context?”</p><p>“Okay, so—” Maybe it’s stupid, or not cool, but she <em>really</em> likes <em>Twelfth Night</em>. Something about the chaos, and the confused identities, the characters, the language… she never liked English class until they started watching plays, instead of just reading stuff. “Viola is pretending to be this man named Cesario— long story— and she’s working for this Duke Orsino, who sends her to woo this woman, Olivia. But Olivia doesn’t like Orsino— she wants to hear how ‘Cesario’ would woo her. This is that scene.”</p><p>Ethan frowns. “So Viola’s flirting with a woman?”</p><p>The question, the confused look on his face, it all makes Lexa stiff and nervous for reasons she doesn’t really want to address. “Yeah. I mean, she has to. But she likes Orsino, not Olivia.” But the way she’d presented the speech, so delicate-worded yet full of passion, and the way Olivia returns with the soft <em>‘you might do much’</em>... </p><p>It isn’t fair, Lexa thought, that Olivia ends up with some man she’d never spoken to, just because he looks like Cesario. It isn’t fair, when she loved Cesario— Viola— whatever— to the point of such gentle language.</p><p>“’Lright,” Ethan mumbles back, still looking slightly unsure. “So I just say what Olivia says?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Lexa responds, a bit too much enthusiasm in her voice. She’s glad for the change in subject. “Yeah, you’ll know when I’m done.” She turns towards her sister, who is wandering back from the huge box of donated legos with another armful to sort. “Wanna call for action again, Banana?”</p><p>Hannah smiles, nods, and drops the legos in a loud plastic clatter. She rocks on her heels, moving forward with each word. “Ready, set, action!”</p><p>Lexa looks at Ethan. He’s no dutchess— he’s in a faded blue t-shirt and the thread-bare boa he hadn’t taken off, not Olivia’s black mourning gown and thrown-back veil— but his posture is tall and elegant. He does have an air of royalty about him.</p><p>She clears her throat and, from memory, “‘Make me a willow cabin at your gate, / And call upon my soul within the house.” She speaks the iambic pentameter with the proper stress, every line with the craftsmanship inherent to it. “Write loyal cantons of contemned love / And sing them loud even in the dead of night,” She is fully into it now— the world narrows, shifting around her from a near-foreclosure rec center to a noble home with tall walls and the kind of fine furniture she has never seen in person. “Halloo your name to the reverberate hills, And make the babbling gossip of the air, / Cry out,”</p><p>She pauses, for a half a moment, and in it is a decision. This word, this <em>single</em> word is the most important of the play. She’s watched and listened to the monologue over and over again in different recordings, saw how every Viola had presented this word. The last time she did the monologue, she’d shouted it for the entire world— or rec center— to hear. But this time… </p><p>“‘Olivia,’” she says it low, an extension of her breath, the word turned to silk in her mouth. Gentle as the wind Viola describes across the hills, gentle as the words crafted for this dutchess, gentle as Ethan’s wide, bright eyes on her.</p><p>“O,” the familiar sound, almost as if she is about to repeat the name. Instead she turns half away, words coming more quickly now as she strides confidently towards the end of the speech, “You should not rest / Between the elements of air and earth. /But you should pity me.’”</p><p>She’s turned back to look at him with the final words, and their eyes meet. Ethan doesn’t look down at the script, keeps his eyes fixed on her and he delivers, softly as she’d spoken his character’s name, “‘You might do much.’”</p><p>And she looks at him.</p><p>And he looks at her.</p><p>And they look.</p><p>Hannah starts clapping.</p><p>Lexa laughs and starts backwards, embarrassed for a reason she can’t place. She looks over at her sister, who’s applauding with a lego in each hand.</p><p>Lexa takes an over-exaggerated bow, and nods Ethan over to do the same. They join hands and bow in tandem, the harsh sound of plastic-on-plastic heralding their praise.</p><p>“Maybe my calling is on the stage as well,” Ethan teases, throwing one end of the boa over the opposite shoulder. “Was my <em>one line</em> clear enough evidence of that?”</p><p>“Men did use to play all the roles in Shakespeare,” Lexa notes. “You could’ve been a stunning Olivia.”</p><p>Ethan snorts. “Sure would’ve.” He nudges her shoulder with his, and the feathers of the boa tickle her bare arm. “Really though, that was amazing! I loved the way you said ‘Olivia’, this time. Matches the whole babbling air thing she talks about.”</p><p>She glances away, trying to force down the flush rising to her face. “Thanks, I think I’ll stick with that.” </p><p>He grabs her hand, taps his thumb against the side of hers. “They’re idiots if they don’t cast you as her.”</p><p>She laughs and shakes her head, sure she’s fully pink now. “Yeah, sure.” Hand still in Ethan’s, she kneels down in front of her sister. “Hey, Banana, what’d you think?”</p><p>She’s expecting the standard ‘Good’, maybe a thumbs up if it was really impactful, but instead, Hannah looks very serious as she puts her legos down. She tilts her head to the side for a moment. Then, slowly, “You’ll be the main character, soon.”</p><p>It’s a weird way to say it, but unusual has always been Hannah’s normal. Lexa takes the compliment with a grin. “Thank you very much, Miss Hannah. I sure hope so.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Can’t you take her with you?” Lexa begs, half a step behind her mom. The woman is pulling tupperware from the high shelves of the kitchen. “Or come home early?”</p><p>“I have plans, Lexa,” mom repeats, shoveling day-old pasta into an old takeout container. “I told you this, and it isn’t the kind of place I can take a child. Why can’t you take her to rehearsal?”</p><p>Lexa huffs. She’s <em>explained</em> this. She’s explained this again and again and mom never <em>listens</em>. “Hannah doesn’t like the lights and the noise. There’s too much on stage it…” she searches for the word, one she’d looked up last week. “It <em>overwhelms</em> her.”</p><p>“Well, she’ll have to get over that eventually.” She tries a third lid on the container. It doesn’t fit. She swears, a word Lexa pretends she doesn’t know, and tries another. “Look, she’ll be fine at home. She’s almost six, you were staying home for hours by that time.”</p><p>“I wasn’t alone, I had Ethan,” she protests. Mom waves off the clarification.  “’Sides, she’s having a bad day. That’s the only thing she’s said to me today. She shouldn’t be alone.”</p><p>Mom sighs heavy and pinches at the bridge of her nose. It's the sign that Lexa should stop talking and take whatever she's gotten. But Hannah needs— “Okay, then you stay with her. Solved.” She turns, ill-fitting container of food in hand. Lexa follows close behind, grasping at her jacket.</p><p>“I <em>can’t</em>. Mr. Ian says if I miss another rehearsal I’ll be too far behind, they’ll have to cut me from the show.” She’s missed four already, two on bad days when neither mom nor Ethan could watch Hannah, and two on days so bad that she needed <em>Lexa</em>, no one else would work.</p><p>Mom turns around, sharp enough that a few grey-streaked hairs fall from the clip in the back, and snaps, “And is that such a bad thing? Who are you playing, the servant? Maybe you shouldn’t make such a big deal until you have a real part.”</p><p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p><p>Oh.</p><p>“Oh, shit, Lexa—” Her mom backtracks, but her voice is suddenly fuzzy in Lexa’s ears. Oh. “Look, I didn’t mean— You— you keep leaving practice to take care of Hannah, far more than she needs you to. So clearly you’ve already chosen a priority, right?”</p><p>Lexa’s mouth is dry. Her eyes are wet. She’s not gonna cry.</p><p>“I’m… Look, Alexandra—” She’s cut off by her phone buzzing. She swears again. “Okay, look, I have to go. Decide what to do about Hannah, I’ll see you later, okay? I can pick up some dessert, alright?” </p><p>Lexa can’t talk. She nods, the gesture fully robotic.</p><p>“Love you.”</p><p>Lexa can’t talk.</p><p>Her mom presses a kiss to the top of her head, a second longer than usual, and walks out the door.</p><p>Lexa doesn’t move.</p><p>
  <em>What are you, the servant?</em>
</p><p>She’s a seventh grader, she wasn’t going to <em>get</em> a better part yet.</p><p>
  <em>(Regina Dunn got Mariah. She’s in your class.)</em>
</p><p>She likes doing the play. She likes watching Priya deliver Viola’s speech, likes mouthing the words along with her. She likes trying on the costumes and talking with the cast. She likes the rush as she speaks her few lines, even with only Mr. Ian and the crew in the audience.</p><p>She doesn’t want to stop. She doesn’t <em>want</em> to. She doesn’t— </p><p>“Lexi?”</p><p>Hannah’s in front of her. Hannah, stiff-shouldered, pigeon-toed, left hand pulling roughly at the fingers of the right. Hannah, having a bad day. Hannah, having <em>another</em> bad day, <em>another</em> day that Lexa needs to be there for her, <em>another</em> day forcing her to miss rehearsal. Hannah, the reason she’s getting <em>kicked out of the  cast—</em> </p><p>Hannah, wide-eyed and so very small. Hannah, saying, “Lexi, I’m sorry.” Hannah, apologizing for something that—</p><p>Something that isn’t her fault.</p><p>This isn’t her fault.</p><p>“Hey, don’t apologize, Hannah Banana.” Lexa clears her throat, as if it could clear the hoarseness in her voice, and opens her arms. Hannah rushes into them, hugging Lexa without a moment’s hesitation. With Hannah’s face tucked in her shoulder, Lexa wipes dry her eyes. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”</p><p>“Go,” Hannah insists, pulling back just enough to look at Lexa. “I heard mom. Don’t be out of the show.”</p><p>Lexa looks down at her, feels another knot in her stomach as she realizes how close she was to resenting this girl. She exhales a shaky laugh and looks away. “Hey, Mr. Ian is a jerk if he won’t let me miss a few days. I’d rather be here with you, honest.”</p><p>Hannah tilts her head, studies Lexa for a moment that hinges on uncomfortable. Then, shakes her head and repeats, “...Honest?”</p><p>“Always with you.” And it’s true, it is, but she suddenly feels very, very tired. “Wanna sit, Banana?” Hannah nods, and they both settle on the kitchen floor, Hannah nestled between Lexa’s legs. She wraps her arms around Hannah’s waist, so that Hannah can play with Lexa’s hands instead of pulling at her own.</p><p>Hannah is quiet, but her shoulders are still rigid against Lexa’s chest, still pulling too harshly at Lexa’s fingers. <em>Bad day</em>. No matter how much this day sucks for Lexa, it's bad for Hannah in ways she doesn’t even really understand. “Hey,” Lexa starts. “Do you want to tell me about that book you got from the library? It looked really cool.”</p><p>Hannah doesn’t say anything for a moment, two. Then, “It has all the different spiders. I like the huntsman spiders. They have banded legs, and flat bodies, and…”  </p><p>Lexa rests her head on top of Hannah’s. Feels the vibration of her voice. She is safe, and that is so, so much more important than any silly play, than anything.</p><p>She knows this.</p>
<hr/><p>“What about <em>Xandra</em>?”</p><p>Ethan hums, considering. “Very space-warrior.” He taps the tip of his pencil against the scrap of paper he and Hannah are playing tic-tac-toe on. He scratches an x into the corner box, which Hannah quickly counters with an o in the middle. Ethan sighs dramatically and falls back. Lexa laughs.  “She had it rigged! She would’ve won no matter what I did!” Hannah’s grinning lightly as she circles her victory. The page is half-covered in tic-tac-toe boards, now, and most of the victors are circles.</p><p>“Get better at tic-tac-toe, loser,” Lexa taunts, sticking out her tongue from where she’s lying on her back on her bed, head dangling over the edge and hair touching the ground. “Maybe it's too space-warrior? Like, it’s walking that weird-cool line and I definitely want to fall on the cool side.”</p><p>“Cool to who? I think it’s cool.”</p><p>“You think anime is cool, I can’t take advice from you.” </p><p>Ethan makes an affronted noise. “It’s good!”</p><p>She rolls her eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, weeb.” She pushes herself out of bed, landing on her back with an ‘oof’. She sits up and takes the pencil from Ethan’s hand and starts writing bolded ‘Xandra’s over the remaining space on the scrap paper. Hannah, sensing the tic-tac-toe is done, starts rifling through her drawers for something to do. “I’m just kinda sick of ‘Lexa’. How about you? Got a high school reinvention plan? There’s not really a way to nickname Ethan.”</p><p>“Maybe I’ll just go by ‘E’,” he holds up his hands, fingers splayed and overdramatic. Lexa snorts. “Okay, yeah, probably not. But my brother gave me—” he reaches into his backpack. “This!” He retrieves a black leather jacket decorated with silver metal studs. He begins pulling it on. “It was his, so it’s still a bit big on me, but I think I’ll grow into it. What do you think?” He stands and twirls, settling into a pose.</p><p>“It’s shining!” Hannah comments, one hand holding a container of that crazy thinking putty stuff that Lexa had got her, and the other in a thumbs up. </p><p>“Hell yeah it is!” Lexa echoes. He really does look properly <em>cool</em>. Like those high school seniors in movies who skip class. Lexa might be blushing a little. She looks away. “Almost hides how much of a dork you are.”</p><p>Ethan looks at Hannah. “Do you know why your sister is so mean to me?”</p><p>Hannah tilts her head, like she’s listening for something, then grins. “’Cause she thinks you’re cool.” Then she holds out the tin container of putty for Ethan to open as payment. </p><p>“I guess, a little,” Lexa relents. She can never bring herself to counter the things Hannah knows, especially when they’re true beyond question.</p><p>Ethan’s smile is half-smug, half-fond. “How do you know all this, Banana-split?” He takes the round container and twists the lid off. </p><p>When Lexa has asked in the past, about why Hannah knows so much she shouldn’t, her sister always closes in or just shrugs. But she doesn’t look at them as she grabs the tin back and starts twirling the putty around her fingers. “His name is Webby,” Hannah says, quiet. “He knows a lot, and he tells me, sometimes.”</p><p>Ethan shoots Lexa a worried look over Hannah, but Lexa returns a quick shake of her head and moves towards her sister. “Who’s Webby?”</p><p>“Spider,” she answers. “Nice spider. I can hear him when he talks to me. You can’t.”</p><p>Lexa can feel the knot in her stomach. She speaks around the dryness of her mouth, “Does he live in your head?”</p><p>Hannah shakes her head no. “No. No, just talks to me there. But he’s real.” Pauses. “Believe me?”</p><p>And Lexa— she wants to believe Hannah, she always does. But the words make her stomach tighten, make her want to rush to the phone, get someone to make sure her sister is okay. Is safe.</p><p>But the hand that isn’t covered in putty is pulled into a tight fist, the kind that has, in the past, left little crescent cuts in her hand that Lexa has had to bandage.</p><p>Lexa being here is what will keep her safe.</p><p>“Of course,” she answers, and tries to shape the words into truth.</p><p>“Honest?” Her eyebrows are furrowed, expression stiff and tight as her fist.</p><p>Hannah has always been special, smart, creative. If anyone would have some sort of magic connection—  “Honest.” Lexa holds out a hand, and Hannah uncurls her fist, laces her fingers through Lexa’s. Hannah smiles then, a bright, full-toothed thing that chases the worry from Lexa’s chest, before hugging her. </p><p>“Thanks, Lexi.”</p><p>After a moment, she turns around in Lexa’s arms, faces Ethan. Lexa can feel some of the putty come off in her hair, but she can’t bring herself to mind. “You believe me?”</p><p>He looks wide-eyed and unsure for a second, two. Then, he kneels down and sits before the two of them. “Cross my heart.” He <em>huffs</em> when Hannah latches onto him, but quickly settles into it. Before she can move away, he makes eye contact with Lexa, brow furrowed and full of worry.</p><p>Lexa just shakes her head.</p><p>“Hey, think of it,” Ethan starts, when Hannah is once again settled between him and Lexa. “What about Lexi? It’s similar, but still new.”</p><p>She considers it for a moment, one of her hands still on Hannah’s shoulder. Then, she shakes her head. “That’s just for Miss Banana here.” Hannah looks over at her and smiles. “Can’t have everyone calling me that, won’t be special.</p><p>“What if,” she continues, a little slower. “What if I just did Lex? It’s simple, just the one syllable, not so… kid-ish.”</p><p>Hannah starts nodding immediately. “Good name!”</p><p>“Yeah?” Lexa— Lex?—  can already feel the excitement in her stomach. It gives her the confidence to try, “What does Webby think?”</p><p>Hannah brightens instantly. She rushes into, “He says—” then tilts her head. A second passes, then another. Then, “He says it’s a hero’s name.”</p><p>Lexa laughs and blushes. “Not sure if it’s for me, then.”</p><p>Hannah shakes her head. “No.” Head tilted. “No, he says it’s a hero’s name. Your name.”</p><p>“I like it,” Ethan chimes in. “Definitely cool, but also not… it’s very you.” He reaches past Hannah to take Lex’s hand, taps his thumb twice against hers. “What do you think?”</p><p>“Lex…” She repeats, trying out the single syllable on her tongue, trying to map it to the idea of her <em>self</em>. She looks around at Ethan, the long sleeves of his jacket covering his hands, and Hannah, shaping the putty into a little spider. </p><p>They’re all growing up, aren’t they?</p><p>“Yeah,” Lex says. “I think I’m gonna keep it.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello loves!!</p><p>Would you believe that I originally planned to post this whole fic in one go? But it got to a point where I was 6k words in and they weren't even in high school. yikes. but you will see the High School Drama in the next installment, i just wanted to highlight some key growing up points.</p><p>i realize this fic is all massive amounts of speculation, despite the fact that the califormia family probably have what like, fourty minutes of screen time combined? but hell if im not throwing myself fully into it. headcanons galore babey</p><p>but really thank you so so much for reading and it would mean the earth moon and stars to me if you'd leave a comment!! (kudos are also very appreciated). talk to me about these three!! i love them!!</p><p>Have a lovely day!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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